Describe your close encounters with drowsy drivers

Admit it. You may never have driven drunk, but you probably drove drowsy.

And driving tired causes thousands of accidents a year in New York state, some of them fatal.

State Department of Motor Vehicles officials held a press conference Tuesday to encourage people not to drive while overtired. The event was held at the Sage College campus in Albany, where students admitted the issue is a problem among their peers.

Grabbing coffee or Red Bull, opening the window for a blast of cold air or cranking the radio aren’t solutions. They may keep you awake for another instant, but eventually you’ll start to nod off again. Best idea: Grab a nap in a safe area or trade off driving duties.

So have you ever driven drowsy? What do you do to keep awake? And feel free to detail your close encounters with the nearly napping.

This is a really scary thing. I’ve NEVER fallen asleep while driving and have never ridden with anyone who has. I think I’ll stick to that rule.
Falling asleep at the wheel is so much more dangerous that anything else you might do while driving.
Please, please don’t drive asleep!

Have you blogged while drowsy? You liberal elitists will never fail to conjure up new demons to beat on the struggling middle class with!

Now that you can have drunk drivers arrested and jailed, you’ll try and jail anyone who yawns while getting to where he needs to be by the only way that he knows, AND the only way that you would get around yourselves. The people just yawn in your face when you can’t inflate the issue effectively enough, so then you go and attack the obese (aka all who are cursed with normal appetites, but inherited slow metabolism = genocidal pandering). Your job is to inform the public, but all you do is opinionate, indoctrinate, insult, attack, and pander while feeding your delusions as “educators”. You need to go back to journalism school, and learn your place!

Whether it’s the drunk driver, the tired driver, the cell phone user, or the fat guy enrolled in your insurance plan, there’s sure to be something which YOU are guilty of, especially if you are single and not rich. These social demons are hugely inflated by the media sideshows, at the bidding of some very wealthy liberals, who simply don’t want to share the highways with the rest of you, and want to maintain some profitability in the health plans which they are invested in. You may or may not be, or have been any of the above problems, or all of them, as it is so with the jerk who nearly sideswiped you while passing you, but before you get up and cheer new legislation to make crimes out of very old problems, consider first how it may impact yourself. What’s guaranteed is that those who make these laws will always be themselves immune!

I have driven MORE than often barely awake at the wheel. Being a WOMAN driving alone at night, pulling over to nap is almost just as SCARY as driving tired. I have literally either stopped at a rest stop just to get out to at least walk to the bathroom, blasted the music, rolled down the windows and have slapped my face in order to stay awake.

Sleeping !!!! The scaiest thing I can ever remember was when I was a young man about 22 and living in Utica. On the the way home one night, I was very tired and do not even remember going down a long hill. My Gardian Angel was definitely working overtime as I awoke at the bottom of the hill still on the road with no knowledge of how I got there. Needless to say I learned a very scary lesson

Yes I have driven a car while drowsy and once fell solidly asleep on an urban street. Back when I was a hard charging teen (18 was the legal age) I also drove my overpowered car drunk. Between the two states of virtual blindness, it was the sleeping episode that got me into an accident, striking an oncoming car in the driver’s side rear quarter. My brother reached over and grabbed the wheel, avoiding a head-on. The young occupants of the other car were terrified. My passengers were terrified. No tickets issued. That was almost 40 years ago, when a lot of questionable behavior was more tolerated. I don’t recommend driving drowsy for the obvious reasons, but at the time of the accident, I was certain I was OK to drive. The sleep happened instantly, like I was punched by Iron Mike. Don’t do it.

DMV officials warning us about drowsy driving. NY Sate closing rest areas! What’s wrong with this picture? And so many of these jerks have been voted back into office. I think I’m going to leave NY State. I’ve had enough!

U should have mentioned something about the recent closings of rest areas along the interstates in New York State, and others around the country when you wrote your article about drowsy drivers.
Rest areas allow drivers who are unfamiliar with the local terrain a quick place to pull over and rest instead of driving when they are drowsy. I know this because I have driven an automobile to California from New York a number of times. Driving all day, it’s easy to just nod off at the wheel, causing an accident killing someone if you don’t pull over and rest. Most areas at night are filled up with drivers who rest if needed. I have spent a few nights in a rest area sleeping in my auto because all the rooms in the area are booked.
The state of New York in all it’s wisdom after electing Andrew should look into this short sighted decision by NYS DOT before someone gets killed by a drowsy driver.
Maybe the Times Union should write an article about this subject.

Just the mere fact the state of New York mentions closing rest areas while at the same time talks about driving sleepy and needing to pulll off the road for a rest shows just how disconnected NYS government is from itself.

I fell asleep at the wheel after a long weekend of way too much driving (1200+ miles!) last year. Right as I crossed the Twin Bridges, I dozed off for a split second while in the left lane. As I crossed the rumble strip I woke up just in time for my car to catch on the guardrail and floss the underside. The smell of burning metal and deployed airbag dispersed any remaining drowsiness. By some miracle my passenger and I survived uninjured. It scared me straight–I don’t even think about driving if I think I’m too tired. Too bad I had to lose a decent car in the process to learn that lesson…

All this complaining about NYS cutting services like rest areas, yet 95% of you voted for one of two gubernatorial candidates who insisted that cutting services was essential. Complain and blame all you want, but this is your fault.